Category: Impeachment

Pelosi Has A Case Of The Sads: Claims Kevin McCarthy Plan To Expunge Trump Impeachments Is ‘Playing Politics’

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

Nancy Pelosi really, really doesn’t think House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s plan to expunge Donald Trump’s impeachments is a good idea.

Speaking with CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” Pelosi repeatedly criticized the plan and even resorted to personal insults, referring to McCarthy as a Trump puppet and denouncing GOP hearings on government censorship as a “clown show.”

Reports claim that McCarthy told Trump that he would have the House vote on expunging the Democrat-led impeachments. There is no vote currently scheduled and the reports indicate he is simply trying to gauge support for the idea.

When asked about the idea, the Republican House Speaker said it would have to “go through committee like anything else.”

RELATED: Pelosi Threatens Trump: ‘One Way or Another’ We Will Remove Him

Pelosi Doesn’t Want McCarthy To Expunge Trump Impeachment

In the eyes of the public, those impeachments are already expunged. An honest person can’t say that impeaching Trump for asking Ukraine to investigate corruption was a worthy and bipartisan endeavor.

Nor can anybody who understands what actually happened on January 6th think that these clowns in Congress were putting forth a serious effort in impeaching Trump over his speech.

McCarthy’s efforts, while symbolic and a definite slap in the face to Democrats, seem unnecessary. Trump was acquitted twice, incidentally, proving those impeachments to be little more than a perpetual witch hunt.

That said, Pelosi is clearly upset by the idea, meaning it’s probably a good thing for the country.

“Kevin is, you know, playing politics. It is not even clear if he constitutionally can expunge those things,” she told Bash. “If he wants to put his members on the spot, his members in difficult races on the spot, that is a decision he has to make. But this is not responsible.”

“Go ahead, you’ll be sorry” is usually the last resort for somebody who is trying to use reverse psychology to stop something.

Pelosi wasn’t finished, however, and was clearly riled up.

“This is about being afraid. As I have said before, Donald Trump is the puppeteer. And what does he do all the time but shine the light on the strings?” she said. “These people look pathetic.”

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Pelosi: Efforts To Stop Censorship Are A ‘Clown Show’

Oof. Just watch that video again. You can even put it on mute and tell that Pelosi seems a little worried. The eyebrows almost sailed clear off her grill.

It’s almost as if McCarthy’s plan to expunge Trump’s impeachments would negate the only thing she ever accomplished as House Speaker from 2016 to 2021.

And by “accomplished,” we mean for the Democrat party, not for America. Both of Trump’s impeachments were designed to protect Joe Biden, nothing more.

Pelosi also took umbrage with House hearings on censorship. Censorship that interfered in the 2020 presidential election which, according to Democrats’ own comments, is a threat to democracy, an insurrection.

But because the censorship again protected President Biden, Pelosi isn’t a big fan of trying to expose it.

“What a ridiculous clown show, again, on the part of the Republicans, she said while misidentifying Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Back in 2020, Pelosi seemed to think her impeachment dreams would last forever.

“This president is impeached for life, regardless of any gamesmanship on the part of Mitch McConnell,” she bragged. “He will be impeached forever.”

We’ll just have to see about that, Nancy!

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GOP, McCarthy on collision course over expunging Trump’s impeachments

Posted on (Updated by Mike Lillis

House Republicans increasingly find themselves on a collision course over efforts to expunge the impeachments of former President Trump, a battle that pits hard-line conservatives — who are pressing for a vote — against moderates already warning GOP leaders they'll reject it.

The promised opposition from centrist Republicans all but ensures the resolutions would fail if they hit the floor. And it puts Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in a no-win situation.

If he doesn't stage the vote, he risks the ire of Trump and his allies. If he does, the measures would be shot down, validating Trump's impeachments just as his legal troubles are piling up. 

The issue is just the latest in a long string of debates challenging McCarthy’s ability to keep his conference united while Trump — the GOP’s presidential front-runner who’s also facing two criminal indictments — hovers in the background. 

The expungement concept is hardly new. A group of House Republicans — including Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) — introduced legislation last month designed to erase Trump’s impeachments from the historical record. 

But the debate reached new heights last week when Politico reported that McCarthy — after suggesting publicly that Trump is not the strongest contender for the GOP presidential nomination — raced to make amends, in part by promising to vote on expungement before the end of September.

McCarthy has denied he ever made such a promise. But the denial only magnified the issue in the public eye — and amplified the conservative calls for the Speaker to bring the measure for a vote. 

“It should definitely come to the floor and be expunged,” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), a member of the Freedom Caucus and vocal Trump ally.

“I’m hoping to see it get done before August recess,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a lead sponsor of one of the resolutions, told reporters, later adding that “these are impeachments that should’ve never happened, and so we would like to expunge them.”

The expungement push is anathema to many moderate Republicans, particularly those facing tough reelections in competitive districts, who are treading carefully not to link themselves too closely with Trump.

Some of those lawmakers are already vowing to vote against the measure if it hits the floor — all but guaranteeing its failure given the Republicans’ narrow House majority — and some of them are proactively reaching out to GOP leaders to warn them against staging such a vote. 

“I have every expectation I'll vote against expungement, and I have every expectation that I will work to bring others with me,” said one moderate Republican who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic, noting “I think my views represent a fair number of principled conservatives.”

“We can't change history. I mean, that impeachment vote happened. And I just don't think we should be engaged in the kind of cancel culture that tries to whitewash history.”

The lawmaker added: “I’ve communicated that with leadership.”

A majority-Democrat House impeached Trump twice during his four-year reign in the White House.

The first instance, in late 2019, stemmed from Trump’s threat to withhold U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless that country’s leaders launched a corruption investigation into Trump’s chief political rival, Joe Biden. The second, in early 2021, targeted Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which was conducted by Trump supporters trying to overturn his election defeat.

The votes made Trump just the third U.S. president to be impeached and the first to have it happen twice. His Republican allies have long accused Democrats of abusing their authority for the sole purpose of damaging a political foe.

Expunging an impeachment has never been attempted. And opponents of the move in both parties are quick to point out that it has no practical significance because the impeachments happened and can’t be reversed.

More from The Hill

“There's no procedure for expunging an impeachment,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former constitutional law professor who led Trump’s second impeachment. “It's completely meaningless.” 

Others pointed out that Trump has already been exonerated by the Senate, which failed to convict him after both impeachments, making any new process pointless. 

“They’re silly,” centrist Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said in a text message. “When do we expunge a not guilty verdict?”

The pushback hasn’t discouraged Trump’s allies from pressing ahead for expungement, if only as a symbolic show of solidarity with the embattled former president.

McCarthy, who relied on Trump’s backing to win the Speaker’s gavel this year, threw his support behind expungement in late June, telling reporters the first punishment “was not based on true facts,” and the second was “on the basis of no due process.”

“I think it is appropriate, just as I thought before, that you should expunge it because it never should have gone through,” he said.

After fading from prominence for about a month, the conversation over expungement cropped back up following Politico's report, which came days after the former president said he received a “target letter” from the Justice Department informing him he is the subject of their investigation into his efforts to remain in power following the 2020 election — which includes the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The receipt of a target letter is often a sign that charges will soon be filed, which would mark Trump’s third indictment in recent months — and his second on the federal level. That prospect has only amped up Trump’s fiercest defenders on Capitol Hill and could fuel efforts to expunge the two rebukes he received while in office.

“Every time you pile something on Trump, his numbers go up,” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.). “I'm surprised the Democrats aren't just wanting to ignore him.” 

The discourse over expungement, however, is dividing House Republicans at a precarious moment for McCarthy as Congress stares down a Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government or risk a shutdown.

The appropriations process is already causing controversy within the House GOP conference, as hard-line conservatives — many of them close Trump allies — push leadership to enact aggressive cuts, which includes setting spending at levels lower than the agreement McCarthy struck with President Biden in May.

Trump has thus far stayed out of that debate, as he’d done earlier in the year during the debt-ceiling battle. But he remains a wildcard in the weeks leading up to the shutdown deadline, especially if his legal problems worsen and the pressure on his congressional allies to provide some form of exoneration — even if symbolic — grows more pronounced. 

Democrats, meanwhile, are not sympathetic. 

“The Republicans face a serious political problem,” Raskin said, “because they have wrapped their party around the fortunes and the ambitions of Donald Trump.”

Emily Brooks contributed.

Clarence Thomas is the undisputed king of SCOTUS grift

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is the gods’ gift to investigative reporters. The man has apparently not paid for a goddamned thing in his life since Ronald Reagan installed him in his first powerful government position. His grift goes so deep, according to a new report in from The Guardian, that his powerful network of former clerks had to pay for the privilege of attending his Christmas party.

According to Venmo records reviewed by The Guardian, several former clerks who are now powerful attorneys sent payments to Thomas’s aide, Rajan Vasisht, who was in the job from July 2019 to July 2021 for a 2019 Christmas bash with the justice. The amount of money each sent to Vasisht’s Venmo account wasn’t disclosed, “but the purpose of each payment is listed as either ‘Christmas party’, ‘Thomas Christmas Party’, ‘CT Christmas Party’ or ‘CT Xmas party’, in an apparent reference to the justice’s initials.” Given that Vasisht was Thomas’ aide, scheduling his personal and official calendar and handling his correspondence, there’s no other reason for these high-powered Washington, D.C., lawyers to be sending him money.

Among those who sent money is Patrick Strawbridge, a partner at Consovoy McCarthy, who just secured a big win at the Supreme Court representing the anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions in its suit against the University of North Carolina. He has also worked for the Trump Organization, the Trump family, and Donald Trump, including representing Trump in his failed bid to keep his tax returns from becoming public—his first oral argument before the court. He clerked for Thomas in 2008-2009.

The Consovoy in Stawbridge’s firm is Will Consovoy, who was a fellow Thomas clerk in the same term. Consovoy also worked for Trump, trying to shield his tax records from then-Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. Consovoy was originally lead counsel in the case overturning affirmative action, but withdrew from oral arguments at the court when he was diagnosed with brain cancer. He died earlier this year.

Other former Thomas clerks who sent party money include:

Kate Todd, who served as White House deputy counsel under Donald Trump at the time of the payment and is now a managing party of Ellis George Cipollone’s law office; Elbert Lin, the former solicitor general of West Virginia who played a key role in a supreme court case that limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions; and Brian Schmalzbach, a partner at McGuire Woods who has argued multiple cases before the supreme court.

Most of Thomas’ former clerks have landed in extremely influential positions thanks to their association with Thomas, and of course the Federal Society that helped them get where they are now. A raft of them—about two dozen—ended up with Trump-appointed jobs, either in the administration or in the federal judiciary. In private practice, former Thomas clerks end up in the vast right-wing network of firms that help dark money groups manufacture court cases to do things like overturn decades of precedent in abortion protections, affirmative action, environmental regulation, etc. The Thomas alum are with firms that regularly go before the court and in judgeships on the lower courts, where they can help tee up cases to go to SCOTUS. It’s a right-wing judicial swamp.

Thomas has bragged about how he has the most diverse clerks from all backgrounds. “They are male, they are female, they are black, they’re white, they’re from the West, they’re from the South, they’re from public schools, they’re from public universities, they’re from poor families, they’re from sharecroppers, they’re from all over,” he said in 2017 while talking to students at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

Thomas’ wife Ginni has also written about how the former clerks are like extended family and she’s the “den mother” to the group. She’s organized big reunions (which the clerks probably ended up paying for) and coordinated them all on Facebook. That ended up extending into soliciting their help with the insurrection, for which she had to apologize. Not that there weren’t insurrectionists in the group: John Eastman is among them. He’s facing potential disbarment in California for his part in the attempted coup, and because he has “repeatedly breached professional ethics.” It’s noteworthy Eastman’s “family” from his days clerking for Judge J. Michael Lutting in the mid-1990s included 2020 elector objector Ted Cruz, one of the only senators to back the 2020 scheme.

Whether the powerful, well-connected group of lawyers who paid for Thomas’ Christmas party breached those professional ethics is murky at this point. Kedric Payne, the general counsel and senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, told The Guardian that it is possible that this was simply a pay-your-own-way kind of Christmas party rather than them paying Thomas’ expenses. That would be different from a scheme of lawyers paying for access to a Supreme Court justice. “But the point remains that the public is owed an explanation so they don’t have to speculate.”

Yes, we are owed that explanation, and it’s not likely to be forthcoming. At the heart of this is Thomas’ unbounded propensity for grift, his never-ending grudge against everything, and his sense of entitlement—you see, he’s owed the lavish lifestyle his “friends” have provided him. If that includes making his extended “family” of clerks—more like a crime family—pay for the Christmas party he is hosting for them, so be it. He actually has a lot in common with Trump, doesn’t he?

This is precisely what the founders created impeachment for: Clarence Thomas. It is definitely time for Democrats to draw up those impeachment charges, even though it’s not going to happen. It can’t happen because Republicans are just as corrupt as he is. They aren’t going to let a little corruption between friends stand in the way of overturning progress case by case. But by keeping his scandals front and center, Democrats can make Republicans own him and his corruption.

The only solution to the problem of Thomas is a political one: Beat the Republicans and fix this. That means expanding the court to nullify his presence and ending lifetime appointments to the court so the likes of Thomas can’t happen again.

McCarthy isn’t endorsing Trump yet. America will pay the price

Posted on (Updated by Kerry Eleveld

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has reached that stage of a GOP-controlled congressional session where he is simply perfecting the art of playing political Whac-A-Mole—nothing more, nothing less.

Whatever supposed agenda House Republicans were pursuing, that all ended when McCarthy struck a deal with the White House on raising the debt ceiling that miraculously avoided a catastrophic debt default. While the country undoubtedly benefited from that relatively reasonable outcome given McCarthy’s band of heretics, we will all be paying the price for his betrayal of the caucus extremists for the remainder of his speakership.

The first bill came due in early June, when House GOP extremists shut down the floor and McCarthy was forced to recess the chamber for the better part of a week. Several weeks later, Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna went on a censure crusade against Rep. Adam Schiff of California over comments he made several years ago about Donald Trump's ties to Russia. Luna originally folded a $16 million fine into the measure, which she pushed in the form of a privileged resolution in order to skip going through committee and using regular order. But when 20 vulnerable Republicans sided with House Democrats to table the resolution, McCarthy sprang into action, trying to convince Luna that this very bad look for the GOP was only benefitting one person: Schiff, who ultimately raked in more than $8 million in second-quarter donations for his Senate bid. Luna dropped the fine, McCarthy backed the measure, and the censure passed on a party line vote, 213-209.

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That same week, McCarthy went through the exact same drill with a privilege resolution pushed by Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado to impeach President Joe Biden: no investigation and no high crimes, misdemeanors, or explicit violations of the Constitution. She just felt like it—so there.

McCarthy once again convinces this low-level GOP talent that her resolution will fail, embarrass the Republican majority, and be a boon to Biden. Instead, she agrees to refer the articles to the Homeland Security and Judiciary Committees in return for bragging rights that she initiated the impeachment push.

But that's what McCarthy exists for now—he's a glorified cat herder in a necktie.

"The best he can do in these situations is mitigate the damage," remarked The New York Times' Annie Karni on The Daily podcast. "And he knows every day that his troubles are not behind him and are only probably getting worse."

McCarthy's next challenge is avoiding a massive rift within his caucus over which 2024 Republican hopeful to back. For now, he has declined to endorse Trump—yet another slap in the face to the MAGA misfits who would just as soon burn the House down as build bridges.

It's a placeholder position that could yield fast considering how quickly McCarthy walked back his recent observation that Trump might not be "the strongest" Republican candidate in the GOP field.

Trump fumed over McCarthy’s disloyalty and, in a near-immediate clean up interview with Breitbart, McCarthy asserted, “Trump is stronger today than he was in 2016.”

Sure, watching McCarthy squirm amid the MAGA death grip is entertaining. But the longer McCarthy holds out on endorsing Trump, the bigger the price we'll pay. McCarthy owes his precious speaker’s gavel to Trump, and when Trump wants something, he'll hang McCarthy's delinquency over his head like the Sword of Damocles.

And more than likely, Trump will extract the biggest pound of flesh he can get from McCarthy, whether that's a massive investigation escalation into Biden’s son Hunter, or a full on impeachment proceeding. One way or the other, Trump will get his due.

GOP’s ‘dereliction of duty’ impeachment argument gets skeptical reviews 

Posted on (Updated by Rebecca Beitsch

Republicans eager to impeach a Biden administration official have rallied around a new phrase to justify the rarely used move, accusing President Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of “dereliction of duty.” 

The term, borrowed from the military, allows a court martial to punish service members who fail to obey orders or carry out their duties. 

But experts say the GOP’s basis for removing either man from office is an odd fit for impeachment, which requires demonstrating high crimes or misdemeanors. 

“It sounds quasi-official — it has a sort of military ring to it. But it's not as though high crimes and misdemeanors and dereliction of duty go together. … It's not traditionally one of the impeachment concepts that you would find in the panoply of presidential mistakes,” said Claire Finkelstein, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in national security law and democratic governance.  

“They're looking for a phrase that will kind of draw people in because it sounds semi-official, but will not actually require them to say something true and correct, like, ‘The President has actually done such and such,’” she added. 

The impeachment resolution for Biden introduced by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) accuses Biden of dereliction of duty and abuses of power in connection with how he has handled the border. 

“Since his first day in office, President Biden has trampled on the Constitution through his dereliction of duty under Article 2, to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Instead of enforcing our immigration laws, he has lawlessly ignored them,” Boebert said on the House floor this month before Republicans voted to refer the measure to committee.  

Each of the four impeachment resolutions targeting Mayorkas similarly accuses him of violating his oath of office by failing to enforce immigration laws. 

The House Homeland Security Committee, which has been tasked with an investigation that would be used as the basis for any impeachment effort undertaken by House Judiciary, likewise kicked off its five-step plan with a phase dedicated to reviewing dereliction of duty. 

“The blatant disregard for the Constitution of the United States, which states that the United States Congress passes the laws and the executive branch executes those laws, is just scratching the surface to the harm Secretary Mayorkas’s dereliction of duty has done to our country,” said Mark Green (R-Tenn.), the committee's chairman, in a press conference earlier this month kicking off the formal investigation. 

“Mayorkas’s dereliction of duty has placed the safety of Americans’ second to his own personal agenda," Green added.

For Democrats, the GOP complaints over how the administration is applying — or failing to apply — the laws passed by Congress show the underlying dispute is a policy matter and therefore insufficient grounds for impeachment. 

“Dereliction of duty is something that they have created out of whole cloth,” said Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who served as a lead counsel to Democrats in the first impeachment of former President Trump before being elected to Congress. 

“It has never been a grounds for impeachment. It is not a high crime and misdemeanor, and it is essentially arguing that they don't like the way that President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas have been handling their jobs, which, unfortunately for them, is the consequence of elections,” Goldman said. 

Impeachment proceedings have been used four times for a president and once for a cabinet secretary. 

There are different interpretations of what constitutes a high crime or misdemeanor, and Finkelstein said while impeachment can be used for “bad acts that are not criminal, very often the impeachment charges could also be charged as crimes.” 

“President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas haven't violated the law. And I suspect that members of the GOP and Congress know that full well, and so they don't want to use any term that suggests that there may be a legal violation here. And so they're using this sort of made-up term that has a quasi-military frame to sound vaguely official, but it's really nothing that corresponds to what we would understand from the history of impeachment as a high crime and misdemeanor as the framers would have conceived,” she said. 

The dereliction of duty argument has taken a greater focus in recent weeks amid waning numbers of people arriving at the border. Earlier this year, many in the GOP argued that Mayorkas failed to follow a law that requires perfection at the border to achieve “operational control.” 

Republicans have become more focused on arguing that Biden officials have violated immigration laws, particularly those dealing with detaining and releasing migrants that arrive at the border. 

They also see a wave of fentanyl deaths as a failure to secure the border, though the vast majority of fentanyl that enters the U.S. is believed to come through ports of entry. 

The Department of Homeland Security has argued Mayorkas has acted within his authority because the U.S. simply doesn't have the capacity to detain every person that seeks to enter the country, while parole laws allow DHS to permit some migrants to enter the U.S. while they await a determination in immigration court as to securing a more permanent legal status. The department has repeatedly encouraged Congress to take action to update immigration laws. 

The White House, meanwhile, dismissed Boebert’s resolution as “staging baseless political stunts.”  

“What you would need in order to move forward with impeachment is some finding that they have violated the law,” Goldman said. 

“So the notion that he’s violated his oath of office is just simply saying that he in their view is not following the law, but what it amounts to without any evidence — and they have none — is just a disagreement about how we're dealing with the influx of migrants into this country who are largely escaping completely devastated governments [and] catastrophic situations,” he said, adding that the Biden administration has tried to deal with that “in a humane way.” 

When asked about the legal underpinnings of dereliction of duty by The Hill, Green pointed to the statutes governing the military and the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). 

“The United States is not secure. His job is to secure the United States. He's failed. That's a dereliction of his duty,” Green said, noting the oath he took when entering West Point. 

“Mayorkas’s oath is the same, right? It's not to the geography of America. It's not to the flag. It’s to the Constitution, the idea of America and to the way the Constitution orchestrates how the government is to work.”  

The roots in the Uniform Code of Military Justice could be problematic for making a case. 

“Neither Biden nor Mayorkas are subject to the UCMJ because they’re both civilians,” Finkelstein said. “Dereliction of duty as a military term does not apply to the Secretary of Homeland Security, nor does it apply to the president.” 

Impatience, however, is growing among some in the Republican Party.  

Lawmakers have introduced 11 impeachment resolutions for various Biden administration officials in the past two months. 

“I would hope that it would be this year — and very soon,” Boebert told reporters last week.  

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who served as an impeachment manager for Trump’s first impeachment, dismissed the efforts as another example of Republicans “dragging down the institution of Congress.” 

“I am concerned that as they always do, they use a process that is properly applied as a precedent to abuse the process. But this is all about ingratiating yourself among MAGA members and Trump followers and it's disgraceful,” he said. 

“It’s consuming the time of Congress to keep going through these right-wing exercises designed to gain Trump's favor.” 

GOP hit list: Biden officials targeted by Republicans for impeachment

Posted on (Updated by Alex Gangitano

House Republicans are grappling over whether to move forward with impeaching President Biden and a host of his top officials, putting a spotlight on how the conference has turned to impeachment as a tool to target administration officials.

Republicans disagree over how hard to push for impeachment because some are worried the efforts could backfire after the party heavily criticized Democrats for their House impeachments of former President Trump.

Here’s a look at who House Republicans are targeting for impeachment, and why they are doing so.

President Biden

President Joe Biden speaks during an event about high speed internet infrastructure, in the East Room of the White House, Monday, June 26, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Joe Biden speaks during a Monday event about high-speed internet infrastructure, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

It’s far from clear that most Republicans want to move forward with impeachment proceedings against Biden.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) introduced a procedural measure to force a floor vote on her impeachment articles, which led to internal sparring and a days-long clash between GOP leaders and the congresswoman. The House voted to punt the resolution to committees and avoid making lawmakers vote on it on the floor.

The resolution, which many Republicans deemed as premature, accused Biden of “a complete and total invasion at the southern border.” The resolution includes two articles related to Biden’s handling of matters along the U.S.-Mexico border — one for dereliction of duty and one for abuse of power.

During the last Congress, GOP lawmakers in the minority introduced several impeachment resolutions against Biden, targeting him on immigration, the COVID pandemic and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Boebert’s move was an escalation that threatened to put vulnerable moderates in the caucus in a tough spot if they had to vote on it.

There are other voices in the GOP calling for Biden’s impeachment.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley told Fox News this week that congressional Republicans “absolutely should” look into impeachment. Her comments followed an IRS whistleblower’s claims about tax crime investigations into the president’s son Hunter Biden.

But Boebert’s push has been dismissed by some in her party as frivolous.

“I’ve got a pretty high bar for impeachment,” Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) said last week. “I fear that snap impeachments will become the norm, and they mustn’t.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland

Attorney General Merrick Garland

Attorney General Merrick Garland during a Senate Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee answers a question during a hearing to discuss the President’s FY 2024 budget for the Department of Justice on Tuesday, March 28, 2023. (Greg Nash)

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) brought up impeaching Garland this week, tying it to the Department of Justice’s handling of the investigations into Hunter Biden.

McCarthy said an impeachment inquiry could be warranted over alleged political bias and DOJ “weaponization.” The push has been fueled by an IRS whistleblower’s claims, denied by Garland, that there was political interference in tax crime investigations into Hunter Biden.

“Someone has lied here,” McCarthy said Wednesday on Fox News. “If we find that Garland has lied to Congress, we will start an impeachment inquiry.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) filed articles of impeachment against Garland last summer over the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property for classified and sensitive documents.

“If the whistleblowers’ allegations are true, this will be a significant part of a larger impeachment inquiry into Merrick Garland’s weaponization of DOJ,” McCarthy said in a tweet. 

McCarthy’s focus on Garland is a change in how he has handled calls from Republicans to impeach other members of the Biden administration. He has vowed any impeachment proceedings would not be political.

The White House has bashed the idea of a Garland impeachment inquiry, saying it is an effort to distract from the economy and other topics top of mind for Americans.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas speaks at a news conference on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, ahead of the lifting of Title 42. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas speaks at a March 10 news conference ahead of the lifting of Title 42. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

Republicans, led by Greene and fellow Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Pat Fallon (Texas), have targeted Mayorkas with articles of impeachment over the flow of migrants at the southern border.

House Republicans have held multiple hearings focused on what they describe as Mayorkas’s “dereliction of duty,” and mishandling of border policy, pointing to surges of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border that set records in 2022.

“I just think that more and more people are starting to come around to the necessity to impeach the guy,” Biggs said.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) recently announced the panel would kick off a formal investigation of Mayorkas as a necessary step ahead of an impeachment inquiry.

The focus on Mayorkas has drawn criticism from Democrats who believe Republicans are resorting to impeachment over what amounts to a disagreement over immigration policy.

Homeland Security also has pushed back on GOP arguments over the border while largely blaming Congress for the problems.

The push to impeach Mayorkas has also been complicated by a drop in apprehensions at the southern border in the weeks after the Biden administration ended Title 42, which had been in place since 2020 and allowed for the rapid expulsion of migrants.

FBI Director Christopher Wray

FBI Director Christopher Wray

FBI Director Christopher Wray gives an opening statement during an April 27 hearing to discuss President Biden's fiscal 2023 budget request for the FBI. (Greg Nash)

Greene in May said she would target Wray and introduce articles of impeachment against him. 

The congresswoman argued that Way turned the FBI into Biden and Garland’s “personal police force” and that the FBI has “intimidated, harassed, and entrapped” U.S. citizens who have been “deemed enemies of the Biden regime.”

While citing some FBI actions that she argued show the agency overreached, Greene referred to the plot that multiple men had in 2020 plotted to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). She noted that two of the men were acquitted after defense attorneys argued that the FBI entrapped them and convinced them to engage in the conspiracy.

She also mentioned that the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property for classified and sensitive documents, arguing that the former president didn’t break any laws. Trump has been indicted by a Miami jury over his handling of the records.

Wray is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on July 12.

The hearing comes after the Republican-led House Oversight Committee threatened to hold Wray in contempt over his initial refusal to turn over a document detailing an unverified tip that GOP lawmakers claim shows then-Vice President Biden’s involvement in a bribery scheme. The panel later backed off its contempt threat.

The FBI and Justice Department as a whole have become common targets for conservatives, who have repeatedly claimed federal law enforcement is biased against Republicans and has been weaponized. Those claims have been supercharged by the federal indictment of Trump on charges over his retention of classified government documents after he left office.

GOP divided on first impeachment target

Posted on (Updated by Rebecca Beitsch

The growing zeal among House Republicans to launch impeachment proceedings has hit an early snag: There's no agreement on which Biden administration figure to target.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) this week threw his support behind a possible impeachment inquiry into Attorney General Merrick Garland — just days after the GOP conference sparred internally over a resolution from Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) to impeach President Biden.

And a possible Biden impeachment came on the heels of an announcement from House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) that the panel would kick off the formal investigation of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas needed to proceed with an impeachment inquiry.

Since the GOP takeover of the House, much of the impeachment energy has been focused on Mayorkas, with disagreements over the border fueling several impeachment resolutions in the weeks after lawmakers were sworn in.

But a drop in border crossings in recent months has largely taken the issue out of the national headlines, while at the same time, new accusations surrounding the Justice Department’s handling of the investigation into Hunter Biden have heightened the GOP’s outrage at Garland. It was the latter issue that prompted this week’s surprise statement from McCarthy. 

“If the whistleblowers' allegations are true, this will be a significant part of a larger impeachment inquiry into Merrick Garland's weaponization of DOJ,” McCarthy wrote on Twitter.

In May and June alone, lawmakers introduced 11 different impeachment resolutions for top Biden officials, five of them sponsored by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). Aside from Biden, Garland and Mayorkas, Greene also has her sights on FBI Director Christopher Wray and Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. 

But until recently, McCarthy in many respects had pumped the brakes on some of the conference’s loudest impeachment cheerleaders.

He’s repeatedly said impeachment can’t be seen as a political endeavor and, as recently as Friday, said that any efforts have “got to reach the constitutional level of impeachment.”

Mayorkas targeted initially 

In a trip to the border late last year, widely expected to be a warning shot that Republicans would kick off an impeachment of Mayorkas, McCarthy instead called for his resignation and signaled any plans to boot the secretary would be part of a lengthy process.

“If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate; every order, every action and every failure will determine whether we can begin impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy said last November.

But he’s facing impatience from far-right members of the conference, many with hopes of playing a central role in any impeachment efforts, which would quickly devour the political oxygen in Washington and command the national media spotlight.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) who introduced the first Mayorkas impeachment resolution last year but trailed another such bill this year, said it's not clear when such a measure would move forward or whose name would be on it.

“I introduced mine first — and then I introduced it forth again. … I’ve probably ticked off the leadership too much for them to allow mine to be the one, to be the vehicle. But I still think mine is most comprehensive,” he said.

“I don't know if we'll introduce a new one or just try to amend this one as it moves forward. But I just think that more and more people are starting to come around to the necessity to impeach the guy.”

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas), who introduced the first Mayorkas impeachment articles this year, would also like to be involved.

“I was the first one out of the gate, but I don't really care. You know, success has 1,000 fathers,” he said.

“I’d like to lead the effort, but even if I could just be a lieutenant of someone who does if it's not me, I’m perfectly content with that as well. Because we are a team — we're supposed to be, the 222 of us — and I definitely think he needs to be replaced.”

Border issues draw attention to Biden

The Mayorkas bills have been complicated by Boebert’s resolution, which House Republicans voted to refer to the House Homeland Security Committee, as well as House Judiciary, for consideration. 

Green has been steadfastly focused on Mayorkas, earlier this month laying out a five-phase plan for an investigation into the secretary. Those findings would be turned over to leaders of the Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who would then decide how to move forward.

Though Boebert’s resolution, like those focused on Mayorkas, deems impeachment a fitting response for what Republicans see as a mishandling the border, Democrats have dismissed the plan as trying to boot someone from office over a policy disagreement rather than high crimes and misdemeanors.

It also means a shift for the House Homeland Security Committee, which must now wrap Biden into an investigation that had been squarely focused on the effects of specific border policies carried out by Mayorkas's department. 

“We kicked off this five-phase investigation digging into what I believe is Mayorkas’s failures. We just started the ‘dereliction of duty’ phase a week ago. We've had a committee hearing, we've had two subcommittee hearings, we’re doing our transcribed interviews with all the sector chiefs and things like this,” Green told The Hill.

“Now, the House has obviously asked us to add Biden's actions to the stuff that we're looking into. We'll do that for sure.” 

Boebert’s resolution is just one of five pertaining to Biden, and it's not clear how quickly it may advance, if at all.

“I would hope that it would be this year — and very soon,” Boebert told reporters last week. 

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), who also has a resolution to impeach Mayorkas, stressed that the founders intentionally set a high bar for its usage.

“I believe they should go through thorough and proper, vigorous debate to assigned committees,” he said. 

“The founders established the highest thresholds for impeachment, and intended it to be almost impossible to impeach a president and very difficult to impeach a secretary.”

Hunter Biden’s case takes over 

The border issues that would serve as the basis for either a Mayorkas or Biden impeachment have taken a back seat recently to news that Hunter Biden agreed to a plea deal in connection with an investigation into his failure to pay taxes.

The crux of the matter for the GOP is a whistleblower complaint to the House Ways and Means Committee, where IRS investigator Gary Shapley claimed the investigation was slow-walked by the office of U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump appointee assigned to the matter under the former president.

Shapley said Weiss’s office relayed they were told they could not bring charges in D.C., where he believes the strongest case could be had regarding Hunter Biden’s tax evasion. He alleged that Graves, the U.S. attorney for D.C., would not allow Weiss to bring charges in his district.

Weiss, Garland and Graves have all countered Shapley’s testimony.

“I want to make clear that, as the Attorney General has stated, I have been granted ultimate authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges,” Weiss told House Judiciary members in a June letter.

Garland went further, saying critiques on the Hunter Biden investigation undermined faith in the department.

“I certainly understand that some have chosen to attack the integrity of the Justice Department, and its components, and its employees, by claiming that we do not treat like cases alike. This constitutes an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy and essential to the safety of the American people. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Garland said Friday.

“You've all heard me say many times that we make our cases based on the facts and the law. These are not just words. These are what we live by.” 

Mike Lillis contributed.

Oregon voters will decide on adopting major electoral reform next year

Posted on by Stephen Wolf

Oregon lawmakers voted largely along party lines on Sunday to place a measure on the ballot next year that would ask voters whether to reform the state's electoral system by adopting a form of ranked-choice voting. Lawmakers also unanimously voted to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would empower legislators to impeach and remove statewide executive officials for abuses of office.

If approved by voters, the ranked-choice proposal would cover primary and general elections for president, Senate, House, and statewide executive offices, though it notably would exclude elections for the state legislature itself. Local governments would also be allowed to choose whether to adopt ranked-choice voting for their own elections.

Ranked-choice voting works by letting voters rank the candidates from their first preference to last preference. If no candidate wins a majority among first-preference votes, then the last-place candidate gets eliminated and has their votes reallocated to each of their voters' next preference. This elimination and reallocation process repeats until one candidate takes a majority of the remaining votes.

The proposed reform's most likely impact would be to significantly reduce the risk of similarly positioned candidates splitting a majority of the vote and enabling another candidate opposed by the majority of voters to win with a plurality. However, since some voters who back eliminated candidates may also choose not to rank additional candidates and therefore see their ballots "exhausted" by the final round, it's possible that the ranked-choice winner won't necessarily win with a majority of all ballots cast.

This measure's advancement comes just months after a competitive 2022 election for governor where Democratic state House Speaker Tina Kotek prevailed only 47-44 over Republican state House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, with moderate former Democratic state Sen. Betsy Johnson taking 9% as an independent. Democrats widely viewed Johnson as a potential spoiler candidate for Kotek given her Democratic past, and it's possible that this close call spurred them to take action on ranked-choice voting.

Regardless of Democrats' motivation, support for ranked-choice voting in Oregon had already been building in recent years. Last fall, voters in Portland, the state's largest city, passed a ballot measure to adopt the system for mayoral races. (They also backed a variant of a related approach known as proportional representation for contests for the City Council, where a ranked ballot will be used to elect three members in each of four districts starting next year.) Some other local governments in the state have likewise adopted ranked-choice voting, and more may follow if this measure becomes law.

Sunday's vote also marks the first time that a state legislature in the U.S. has led the way in pushing to adopt ranked-choice voting at the federal or state levels; Alaska and Maine both use ranked-choice systems, but both were passed thanks to citizen-initiated ballot measures. The Oregon proposal is similar to the one Maine voters enacted in 2016, since it preserves party primaries. That stands in contrast to the "top-four" version Alaska voters approved in 2020, which abolished party primaries and has all candidates regardless of party run on a single primary ballot where the top-four finishers advance to a ranked-choice general election.

Oregon lawmakers' ranked-choice proposal isn't the only major electoral reform effort that could appear on the ballot next year, however, as two citizen-led efforts are currently gathering signatures. One of those efforts would adopt a "top-five" primary and ranked-choice general election similar to Alaska's system that would also cover elections for legislature and local offices. It would additionally move Oregon's May primaries to March for president and August for downballot offices. Like the legislature's proposal, though, this measure is statutory in nature.

A rival campaign is backing a constitutional amendment that would abolish party primaries and have all candidates run on a single primary ballot where the leading candidates would advance to the general election, which critically would not be required to use ranked-choice voting. It's also unclear exactly how many candidates would advance to November, since the amendment would give lawmakers two years to decide on the specifics before the new system would take effect in 2027.

There's no guarantee that either of these two citizen-led efforts will end up making the ballot next year, but if they do,it could complicate the prospects for the legislature's proposal if more than one measure were to pass. While a constitutional amendment would supersede a statute, Oregon law does not specify what would happen if competing statutory measures—namely, the legislature's measure and the top-five primary—were to both pass, though lawmakers also face no limits on amending or repealing statutory measures initiated by voters.

Separately, the amendment establishing impeachment would end Oregon's distinction as the only remaining state without such a process. Impeachment would require a two-thirds supermajority in the state House, after which the state Senate would hold a trial where a two-thirds vote in that chamber would be needed to remove statewide executive officials and potentially bar them from running for state office again. The proposal allows impeachment only for instances of "malfeasance or corrupt conduct in office, willful neglect of statutory or constitutional duty or other felony or high crime."

In just the last decade, two statewide officials (both Democrats) have resigned due to scandals: former Gov. John Kitzhaber in 2015 and former Secretary of State Shemia Fagan last month. If they hadn't voluntarily left office, lawmakers would have had no ability to remove them. Currently, only a recall election initiated by voters can lead to a statewide official's removal prior to the next regular election, a much more expensive and time-consuming process than impeachment.

Impeach-A-Palooza 2023: Republicans search for someone, anyone, to impeach

Posted on (Updated by Mark Sumner

Last week, Republicans in the House were desperately seeking a reason to impeach President Joe Biden. That lead to Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Bobert exchanging insults on the House floor, competing bills that included claims that Biden was responsible for an international child trafficking ring, and Republican leadership even more desperately trying to find a way to avoid defending, again, the painful foolishness and delusional nonsense spewed by the member of its most powerful caucus.

Bobert and Greene’s struggle to one-up each other on the outlandishness of their call for a Biden impeachment came just a week after Rep. Bob Goode called for an impeachment of FBI Director Christopher Wray, which came a week after Republicans tried, and failed, to hold Wray in contempt of Congress, and a full month after Greene’s earlier attempt to impeach Wray, who was appointed by Donald Trump, for turning the FBI into “a Federal police force to intimidate, harass, and entrap American citizens that are deemed enemies of the Biden regime.” All of this came wrapped around the House decision to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (and boost his Senate campaign) because … reasons. Not good reasons. Just reasons.

Barely Speaker Kevin McCarthy now seems to have picked a target to satisfy his members’ impeachment bloodlust, if he could only find a crime.

As The Hill reports, McCarthy has proposed that the Republican demand for a human sacrifice might find its ceremonial victim in Attorney General Merrick Garland, but impeachment has that pesky requirement for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” meaning McCarthy needs more than a name, he needs a justification before he can start whipping up the vote.

So what does he have?

McCarthy wants to impeach Garland because a “whistleblower,” apparently from within the IRS, claims to have knowledge of a private WhatsApp message in which Hunter Biden tried to extract money from a Chinese businessman. That whistleblower also accused the Department of Justice of giving Hunter Biden “preferential treatment” in an examination of his taxes.

“If the whistleblowers’ allegations are true, this will be a significant part of a larger impeachment inquiry into Merrick Garland’s weaponization of DOJ,” said McCarthy.

Unfortunately, for all the times that Republicans sling it around, there is no such crime as “weaponization of the DOJ” or the FBI or of any other department. It’s certainly true that these departments can be and have been aimed at individuals—see Martin Luther King Jr. and just about anyone who ever offended J. Edgar Hoover or Richard Nixon—but impeachment requires a crime, not a buzzword.

They need to find evidence that Garland has done something like intervene to repress evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Hunter Biden. That could be hard considering U.S. Attorney David Weiss just came off a five-year investigation into Hunter Biden that resulted in two minor charges of late payment of taxes and a charge of owning a gun while using drugs.

Weiss was appointed to this task by then-Attorney General William Barr, and the first two years of the investigation were carried out under Donald Trump. If there is anything unusual in the charges, it’s that Biden is being charged at all, because these are very rarely applied charges.

McCarthy admits that there are “clear disparities” between what Weiss found and the unsubstantiated reports Republicans are waving around as part of their fundraising campaigns. He’s demanding that Weiss come back to the House and explain the issues. Garland has said he’d be happy for Weiss to make such an appearance and talk about any issues with the IRS.

While he’s at it, maybe Weiss can explain how the reported attempt to extort a Chinese billionaire happened in 2017 while President Joe Biden was no longer vice president, no longer in the Senate, and not running for anything. As Garland explained on Friday, Weiss had full authority to pursue any evidence he found, including "more authority than a special counsel would have had." He also noted that the IRS whistleblower had claimed Weiss was prohibited from looking at evidence outside Delaware, which was untrue.

While McCarthy has Weiss at the House, he might also get in a few questions about why the last “key informant” that Republicans claimed to have, this one also throwing around unsubstantiated claims about Hunter Biden, turns out to be dead. And the guy who was at the center of that supposed deal turns out to have died over three years before Hunter Biden became involved.

Of course, the requirement for McCarthy to produce a crime on which to base impeachment is only what’s in the Constitution and the law. No big deal for this crew. Republicans can write up an impeachment because they don’t like the pattern on Garland’s tie and likely find a majority to pass it.

Donald Trump was impeached, twice, on clear crimes. First he was impeached for his attempt to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into providing false evidence against then-candidate Joe Biden. That effort not only caused delays in military assistance to Ukraine, it sent a clear signal that the United States wasn’t interested in stopping corruption. It was interested in causing corruption.

Trump’s second impeachment came from his involvement in the events of Jan. 6. Trump not only provided consistently false statements about the 2020 election, he incited violence and delayed necessary assistance to protect members of Congress and Capitol Police.

Republicans want to impeach someone, anyone, in order to gain a measure of revenge concerning Trump. That includes McCarthy voicing his support for expunging Trump’s twin impeachments. Everything they are doing is about showing their support for Trump and showing Trump supporters how willing they are to smite anyone who opposes him.

But this chart from last week shows their basic problem.

It’s not that Republicans aren’t getting plenty of opportunities to investigate their opponents. It's that Republicans keep doing all the crime. Whether it’s a special counsel or a U.S. attorney, years of investigations into Joe Biden and Hunter Biden have found no grand conspiracy or serious crime. But just a few months’ worth of investigating Trump turned up felonies literally in the dozens.

For that, Republicans want to prosecute the investigators. Maybe their “tough on crime” theme would work better if it were actually aimed at the criminals. Like Trump.

By embracing ‘impeachment expungement’ nonsense, McCarthy risks his thin majority

Posted on by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

Kevin McCarthy’s brief speakership has been such a shambolic clusterf--k. It’s a wonder he’s retained enough of his wits to keep pretending Donald Trump is a real boy—one with real human feelings beyond hunger, rage, and that concupiscent soup of queasy envy that heats up whenever his weird milksop of a son-in-law comes within Taser-range of his daughter. 

But he’ll keep pretending. Oh, will he ever! Now that his immutable soul is a wholly owned subsidiary of MAGA, Speaker McCarthy’s abandoned his dogged fight against inflation and returned to his true life’s work: continually inflating Donald Trump’s greasy ego. And he’s doing it with the help of his BFF Marjorie Taylor Greene and House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, who recently introduced a symbolic measure to “expunge” Donald Trump’s two impeachments. Naturally that’ll make us all forget that he extorted a foreign ally and incited an insurrection against the U.S. government.

Fresh off censuring Rep. Adam Schiff for telling the truth about Trump, McCarthy, et al., are fixing to absolve the ex-pr*sident before he even thinks about asking for forgiveness. And, needless to say, that’s left Republican House members from light-blue districts a little spooked.

RELATED STORY: Republican disarray is somehow, miraculously, getting worse

Insider:

In backing the effort, led by Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Elise Stefanik of New York, McCarthy is putting his weight behind their goal of removing the charges against Trump from the impeachments of 2019 and 2021.

"I think it is appropriate, just as I thought before, that you should expunge it, because it never should have gone through," the California Republican told reporters on Capitol Hill.

McCarthy said that the 2019 impeachment was "was not based on true facts" while adding that the 2021 vote was taken "on the basis of no due process."

Right? That 2019 impeachment was bullshit! Just read the transcript.

Wait, you’re not actually reading the transcript, are you? 

Who told you to do that?

Stop it!

No more reading now, I mean it!

Anybody want a peanut?

Okay, it’s all right to skim it. Just make sure you stop as soon as you get to the part where Trump says, “I would like you to do us a favor, though,” because everything after that is pretty transparently treason-y.

Speaking of treason, the 2021 impeachment was an even easier layup—one that Mitch McConnell, et al., intentionally missed.

But being a Republican in 2023 means you’re expected to defend everything Trump says and does, up to and including installing beige bathroom fixtures that badly clash with one’s ecru classified document boxes and white crystal chandelier.

RELATED STORY: Special counsel gives two fake Trump electors immunity to compel testimony

That said, some non-MAGA House Republicans are nervous about being forced to vote on anything related to Trump’s guilt or innocence, because he’s fucking guilty and everyone with a functioning brain stem—which includes a not-insignificant number of swing voters and non-MAGA Republicans—knows it.

This week, the Republicans wanted President Joe Biden impeached. The GOP censured Adam Schiff for probing Donald Trump's corruption. The Republican Party declared their intention to expunge Donald J. Trump's impeachments. Trump was impeached twice. We, the people, won't forget. pic.twitter.com/7jA3csad4u

— Tony - Resistance (@TonyHussein4) June 23, 2023

On Friday, CNN reporter Manu Raju reported on the expungement effort and the bind in which it appears to put some moderate Republicans.

YouTube Video

(Partial) transcript!

RAJU: “[I]n a key announcement just moments ago in that same press gaggle, Kevin McCarthy told a group of us he does support this effort to expunge those Trump impeachments. Even though it is symbolic and won’t change the actual record of the impeachments happening, if it were to move forward it would put moderates in a more difficult spot. Some of them simply don’t want to vote on this or take a position backing Trump, particularly when it comes to Jan. 6. One of them, Don Bacon, a member from Nebraska from a district that Joe Biden carried, told me it sounds, quote, ‘kind of weird to go down that route.’ And McCarthy would not promise to bring this to the floor … but he said it would go to the House Judiciary Committee and then they would make a decision. He also told me that, no, he has not spoken to Trump about this.”

Why would he talk to Trump about it? What would Trump say? He didn’t even call off his dogs when they were biting at McCarthy’s heels on Jan. 6. Why would he help McCarthy now? 

Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress are treating this expungement effort with all the seriousness it deserves.

If I finish rearranging my sock drawer, I will proudly introduce two resolutions to expunge the two expungement resolutions by GOP Reps @EliseStefanik and @mtgreenee. Because this is all pretend stuff anyways. https://t.co/1KzTTJ8skG

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) June 24, 2023

Rep. Dan Goldman, the Democrats’ lead counsel during the first Trump impeachment, pointed out that this was clearly just theater. “It is just a further continuation of the House Republicans acting as Donald Trump's taxpayer-funded lawyers,” Goldman told CBS News. "It’s telling who is introducing them and it’s essentially whoever is trying to curry the most favor with Donald Trump,"

Even Jonathan Turley, a Georgetown University law professor who served as a witness for House Republicans during Trump’s first impeachment, thinks the expungement effort is nonsense. “It is not like a constitutional DUI. Once you are impeached, you are impeached,” Turley told Reuters.

Of course, this is all part and parcel of Republicans’ wider campaign to whitewash our country’s recent history.

For the record, Trump-Russia collusion was proven, no matter how many times Republicans say the Mueller investigation was a hoax and a witch hunt. Trump really did extort Ukraine in a bid to manufacture dirt on President Joe Biden, no matter how many times they tell you to look the other way.

And Trump’s reckless and illegal action (and inaction) on Jan. 6, 2021, really did cause the deaths of Americans and bring our country to the brink of a constitutional crisis. McCarthy should at the very least remember that last incident. It’s pretty hard to forget the day you begged for your life and heard nothing but nonsense back.

Then again, McCarthy helped revive Trump’s political career in the wake of Jan. 6, so as his paper-thin majority continues to tear over trifles like this, he can be confident that he has only himself to blame.

Though something tells me he’d rather point fingers at Hunter Biden.

RELATED STORY: Republicans supercharge Trump's war on justice

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.